


Ritual (14): Trouble Slut

by mystery_sock (terebi_me)



Series: Ritual [13]
Category: Heroes (TV 2006)
Genre: 1990s, Angst and Feels, Awkward Romance, Bad Decisions, Beastie Boys, Big Mutant Family, Body Hair, Coming of Age, Desire, Drinking & Talking, Explicit Sexual Content, Family Secrets, Homophobia, Kink Exploration, M/M, Masochism, Musical References, New York City, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Oral Sex, Peter is a sexual savant, Petrellicest, Poor Nathan, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Promiscuity, Self-Denial, Sibling Incest, Sibling Love, Summer, Superpowers, Teenage Peter, Telepathy, True Love, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, not straight - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:15:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24062704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terebi_me/pseuds/mystery_sock
Summary: "…At least he could complain to someone about girls. At least he could talk about that. He couldn't even talk about Nathan with Nathan. This was all inside Peter's head, and he had to figure everything out entirely on his own." Peter comes over to borrow a movie, and ends up showing Nathan something new he learned.
Relationships: Nathan Petrelli/Peter Petrelli
Series: Ritual [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1321937
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	Ritual (14): Trouble Slut

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Antonia_Simmons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antonia_Simmons/gifts).



> Thank you to Antonia_Simmons for her words of encouragement. Sometimes I need a boot to the hindquarters to remind me that I still have work to do - and fics to post!

_EIGHT YEARS BEFORE THE ECLIPSE..._  
  
After dinner, Peter went to his room and tried to study for only about five minutes before giving up. He changed from his button-down shirt to his favorite, faded dark-blue T-shirt, and lay face down on the bed, staring at the wall, thoughts chasing themselves around inside his head. He sat up again, shoving his notebooks, pens, and the copy of _Heart of Darkness_ back into his backpack. He was too restless. He wasn't going to get anything useful done tonight.  
  
His senior year of high school had only started last week, and he hadn't managed to realign his brain into study-mode yet. His mind was still back there in summer, walking on the hopping-hot sand and swimming in the cold, sharp ocean at Montauk. Crisp blue and gold mornings, sweltering, salty green and gray afternoons, black nights full of the shrill of crickets and the thumping bass from car stereos. Low-top Converse sneakers with no socks, the insides always crunchy with sand. Surfing lessons and a girlfriend. Parents happy; Nathan happy. Everything normal and good. Believing that he was normal and good, for once.  
  
He hated to think about how all of that was over now. Summer ended today. Everyone was back in the city, and vacation was over, and Peter didn't know how to surf and didn't have a girlfriend. Mom and Dad were grumpy and distracted, flipping randomly back and forth between picking on him and ignoring him. And Peter hadn't talked to Nathan in weeks, since Nathan had left the summer house after his week's vacation spent there. He'd barely even laid eyes on Nathan since then. It was like Nathan was avoiding him, only giving Peter the most terse of greetings and goodbyes, and making sure he could never stay long when he did come to the house. Nathan had only dropped off some flowers for Mom, returned something he borrowed from Dad. "Hey, Pete," with barely a glance. And then he'd disappear.  
  
He'd dropped by to bring back something he'd borrowed from Dad...  
  
Peter suddenly had an idea. He went to the hall, grabbed the wireless phone handset, and returned to his room, dialling his brother's number.  
  
"Hello?" Even filtered through the phone line, Nathan's voice was clearly anxious, and trying not to be.  
  
"Hey, Nathan, what's up," Peter replied.  
  
"What do you mean, 'what's up'? Nothing."  
  
"What's the matter? You sound really tense."  
  
Nathan sighed impatiently, then asked, "I do?"  
  
Peter said, "You do. Am I interrupting something?"  
  
"No, I just got home."  
  
"Hey, can I come over?"  
  
"What? Now? I... can't, Pete. I've got a date; I'm going out at nine."  
  
Peter glanced at the clock; it was seven. "But, uh... I need to borrow your copy of _Apocalypse Now_. I have to write a paper on Joseph Conrad, and I figured that'd be an easy one. Y'know, compare the movie with the book and stuff. But I just remembered I haven't seen the movie, I've only heard you talk about it."  
  
Nathan laughed drily. "There's a wonderful invention, you might have heard about, called a video store. The one on Seventh delivers, you know. With pizza."  
  
"Well, no, it's like..." Peter sighed. "I actually just want an excuse to get out of the house. Dad's got some other trial lawyers over, and I hate being stuck in my room all night. I just want to say hi and see you, because I miss you. I promise I'll just come by and grab the movie and then leave, and then I'll... oh, I don't know. Wander the streets until I know the coast is clear."  
  
Nathan laughed. "Are you done whining? All right. Come on by," he replied. "Did you eat yet?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm cool. We had fish. It was pretty good. I'm gonna leave right now - I'll be there in half an hour."  
  
"Fine," said Nathan, and hung up.  
  
Peter put his shoes back on and grabbed his backpack, and went to the parlor where his parents and a couple of his father's colleagues sat around with cocktail glasses and opportunistic smiles. He stood in the doorway and nobody looked up at him, so he announced, "I'm going to Nathan's."  
  
His mother glanced up, and said, "Please take a jacket, dear."  
  
"OK," said Peter.  
  
"Be home by eleven," said his father.  
  
"Is it OK if I end up staying over?" Peter asked hopefully. "I've got a change of clothes in my locker at school."  
  
His parents exchanged a complicated look with enough forehead-furrowing, eyebrow-raising and shrugging to qualify as sign language. It was sort of cute to watch, and Peter smiled to himself, grateful that his parents at least loved and understood each other. They had to; they'd been together for thirty-three years. Most of the other kids he'd ever met had at least one divorce in their families. Finally, Peter's mother turned to him and said, "If you stay over, call us and let us know, all right?"  
  
"Cool, thanks," said Peter. "Uh, nice to meet you, Mr. Miller, Mrs. Miller, Mr. Byrne." He left before he had a chance to overhear what they'd say about him, and was down on the subway platform before he remembered that he was supposed to take a jacket.  
  
It didn't really bother him. The evening was still warm, summer's heat reluctant to leave New York. He put on his headphones and let the opening horn tones of "Super Disco Breakin'" pump into his ears. He'd been listening to the Beastie Boys' _Hello Nasty_ pretty much every day since he'd gotten it, right before leaving for the summer house, and now each song had memories attached to it. Since returning to the city, he spent a lot of time listening to the album on headphones, losing himself in those memories. It was even better than reading a book, because it wasn't fiction, but it seemed so distant from his current reality that he had a hard time believing that those things had happened to him.  
  
Each song had a color, a taste, a smell, an entire web of associations. "Super Disco Breakin'" was the pale early morning with the sunlight slanting through the trees, heading back for his second surfing lesson, his body stiff and mottled with bruises from the day before, but determined to go out and try it again. "Body Movin'" was that glowstick-lit party where he had danced with so many girls that his girlfriend threatened to break up with him, only the first threat of many. (What was he supposed to do? None of the other guys there were willing to dance, and any opportunity to dance to that song was an opportunity he'd take. It wasn't like he was a good dancer, but it was fun; he didn't care if he looked stupid. He wasn't trying to make the girls want him. Or maybe he was, a little.) "I Don't Know" was the make-up sex the morning after the party, sharp fingernails digging into his back, her lips tasting like raspberries and beeswax. "The Negotiation Limerick File" was walking along the back country road with the portable CD player, playing the music out loud, singing along, enjoying his afternoon solitude. "Intergalactic" was being "hot-boxed" in an enclosed patio full of bong-hitting surfers, getting insanely stoned without having to actually smoke anything himself, playing SoulCalibur, laughing at the name "Siegfried" until his stomach hurt.  
  
"Song For Junior" was the last song he'd heard before Nathan paid up on his debt.  
  
_Okay, Pete, it's your birthday. I said I'd owe you one for flaking out on that Knicks game, remember? So... what do you want?_  
  
And so Peter told him. Half kidding, but, of course, not kidding _at all_.  
  
Peter still couldn't believe he had ever been so bold, and sure couldn't believe Nathan would even go along with it. Honoring a debt was one thing, but...  
  
Nathan seemed to _want_ to do it.  
  
_I want you to make me come, Nathan._  
  
But then the next day, and the whole rest of that week, Nathan was really rude to Peter, and didn't want to talk to him, and Peter was back to being confused. And annoyed. And frustrated. It wasn't the first time something like that had happened. They'd get close, and it would be wonderful, and then Nathan would throw Peter away as hard as he could. It was as bad as dealing with girls.  
  
Worse, because at least he could complain to someone about girls. At least he could talk about that. He couldn't even talk about Nathan _with_ Nathan. This was all inside Peter's head, and he had to figure everything out entirely on his own.  
  
Sitting there on the subway, listening to "Song For Junior" coming up again on the track shuffle, Peter wondered why he bothered. He knew it would make Nathan happy if Peter would just leave him alone - or, so it seemed. But it seemed more - in the look in Nathan's eyes when they were together, by the sound of his voice, by the reactions of his body - that Nathan was drawn to what they did in secret, was fascinated by it, pleased by it. That he enjoyed it. That he wanted it, too, but he would never admit it.  
  
Of course not. Because you didn't.  
  
Admit it, that is.  
  
Peter had reached his stop. He left his headphones on as he left the subway car and walked through the station, letting his eyes play over the people he passed, wondering what each of them had done, and loved, and wouldn't admit.  
  
Peter waved to the doorman from outside the lobby of Nathan's building, keying in the code to ring Nathan's unit. "Hey, I'm here," Peter spoke into the grille. Nathan never replied to that, only buzzed him in.  
  
Nathan's unit front door was unlocked, and Peter let himself inside, calling, "Hello, you in here?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm right here." Nathan emerged from the back rooms, drying his face with a towel. He was in shirtsleeves, the cuffs unbuttoned and rolled up to expose his muscular, dark-haired forearms, his formerly dark tan fading to a luminescent gold, the color striking in contrast with the white shirt. He had taken off his tie and watch, and loosened his collar, but otherwise he looked like he was still wearing his work clothes, the backs of his slacks and shirt rumpled from sitting down most of the day. A light film of end-of-the-day stubble darkened his jaw. He barely looked at Peter, his expression preoccupied. It didn't compromise his handsomeness in the slightest.  
  
"Hi." Peter set his bag down along the wall, walked straight up to Nathan, and hugged him. Nathan hugged back, but half-heartedly. "Are you mad at me?" Peter whispered into Nathan's ear.  
  
"What?" said Nathan, drawing away. "No... I'm not mad at you. I'm glad to see you." He folded the towel he had been using into a small, precise square.  
  
Peter stood there with his arms wrapped tightly around himself, still needing to be hugged, chewed on his thumbnail, and looked furtively at Nathan. "Don't tell me you're going out like that."  
  
"I'm not," Nathan admitted. "I'm not going out." He walked back into his bedroom, heading toward the bathroom behind it, and Peter followed, unwilling to let Nathan out of his sight so soon.  
  
"But you had a date."  
  
"Yeah, I canceled."  
  
"For me? I told you I'd - "  
  
"No, not for you. Get real." Nathan laughed at him, but sounded a little uncertain. "No, I rescheduled for next Tuesday, at a much less expensive place. No need to spend too much money just to tell someone you don't want to see her anymore."  
  
"Ohh... you're dumping her? _And_ you're being cheap about it? God, you're such a winner." Peter bounced onto the surface of Nathan's bed, and lay back, making himself comfortable.  
  
"I have my reasons for doing what I do," Nathan replied. Instead of putting away the wet towel, he twirled it into a whip, and snapped Peter's bare arm with it. "Get off of my bed. I don't want you getting your muddy shoes all over it."  
  
"My shoes aren't muddy!" Peter protested, rolling back up onto his feet and rubbing the tingling spot on his arm. "I haven't even seen mud in weeks!"  
  
He let himself be shuffled back out of the bedroom into the front sitting room, then through the kitchen into the study, where shelves lined with law books shared space with a big television and pretty much every kind of audio and video playback device you could get, and a small, but carefully selected collection of records, CDs, and movies. The study was always as immaculate as a clean-room, without a speck of dust on anything, and everything arranged exactly. Pretty much like everything else in Nathan's apartment.  
  
Nathan stood with his back to his desk, and faced Peter with his arms crossed. "So why do you need _my_ copy of _Apocalypse Now_? You know I don't like to lend out my films, especially not that one."  
  
"Maybe I don't have to borrow it," Peter said, unable to keep the smile off his face. "Maybe I should just watch it here. It never has to leave the room."  
  
Nathan barely seemed to have heard him. "I don't know if you know what you're getting yourself into. You think that's going to be an easy paper to write?" he said. "There've been whole books written about that subject - in fact - " He broke off, and strode over to the shelf where he kept non-law books. He pulled one out of place and handed it to Peter. "Like this one. You should read this. You can borrow this, even though I'm tempted to just let you set down your half-baked concept of metaphor and get a C-plus, the plus point for the audacity of your idea, and the C because it's not exactly an original idea -"  
  
"Can I just watch the fuckin' movie?" Peter asked quietly.  
  
Nathan slowly smiled, shrugging a little with embarrassment. "Yeah, okay... go ahead." Peter noted the subtlety of the reaction, and tried to memorize it so he could do that the next time he was embarrassed, instead of blushing and hugging himself like a girl. He'd be worthy. He was learning from the greatest.  
  
Peter sat on the edge of the chair opposite the television, and watched Nathan getting the videotape off the shelf beside the chair. "You gonna watch with me?"  
  
"I don't think I will," Nathan replied. "I'm not really in the mood to watch war and nightmares right now. I don't exaggerate. It's kind of intense. Besides, I've seen it about thirty times."  
  
"What were you gonna do instead, since you skipped out on your date?" Peter asked, and when Nathan didn't have a ready reply, he laughed. "You _did_ cancel for me, didn't you?" Peter ran a finger along Nathan's wrist, at the line where the white rolled cuff stopped and the golden skin and dark hairs began. Nathan didn't move. Peter took his finger back and shrugged, offering, "I don't have to watch it now; I can borrow it, and watch it, and bring it back over the weekend. I promise I won't hurt it. And hell, even if I did, you could always buy another one. What, is that one personally signed by Marlon Brando or something?" Nathan didn't reply to that, either, and Peter sighed. "It's okay. Let's just hang out. It's what I want. I just want to see you and be out of the house." Peter stood up, turning away, letting Nathan off the hook.  
  
Nathan sighed, "Yeah, okay, Pete. That's fine. We'll just hang out for a little while. Well, do you want something to drink? I've got Coke, orange juice–"  
  
"Do you have any beer? Can I have a beer?" Peter grinned wickedly, his "I'm so naughty but cute, you have to give in" face. It had worked like a charm since he was a little kid, especially on Nathan. Sometimes Peter really enjoyed being a spoiled brat.  
  
Nathan laughed and shook his head at Peter. His eyes looked different than they had when Peter had first arrived; they seemed wider and softer, more open. "Okay. But just one."  
  
"That's okay; I'll nurse it. Make it last all night." Peter smiled at Nathan, and locked eyes with him. Nathan stared back for a little while, then turned away, headed out of the room. Peter felt a warm glow of satisfaction rising in him as he realized that he was chasing Nathan around the apartment, like an obnoxious boy hounding a girl at a party. That's what it felt like - like all he had to do was be persistent and he'd get a kiss, maybe even a promise of more. Seven Minutes in Heaven, a little Spin-the-Bottle, Truth or Dare. He could hope.  
  
*-*-*  
  
"So why didn't you go to your girl - Marjorie, right? - her house?" Nathan asked, returning to the living room sofa with his second beer. Peter had taken off his shoes and socks, and as Nathan sat down, he rested his legs across Nathan's lap again. Nathan comfortably settled, one arm across Peter's knees, the other raising the beer to his lips.  
  
Peter had finished his, but for a last swallow. He didn't want to drink that, just in case it would give Nathan an excuse to kick him out. He loved the relaxing effect of a single beer; he felt a lot less depressed, and it had done wonders for Nathan. They'd been talking freely for more than an hour, and Nathan hadn't batted an eyelash when Peter rested his legs across Nathan's lap. "She's not my girl anymore," Peter said. "She cut me loose about a month ago."  
  
Nathan furrowed his brow. "Ouch."  
  
"Yeah, she thought I was fucking around on her, and I totally wasn't. But girls flirt with me a lot, and sometimes I flirt back, and I can't even help it. You know how it goes."  
  
"You don't seem too broken up about it," Nathan noticed. "Why'dn't you call me?"  
  
"Because... I figured you'd just laugh at me." It wasn't entirely the truth. He couldn't really explain that if he had called Nathan, he would have just started screaming, _What did I do wrong? Why'd you leave me like that? Why can't we touch? Is it so horrible? Do you still love me? Why did you say yes?_ And Peter couldn't. He wanted to be normal and good, or at least pretend to be, especially for Nathan, who was extraordinary and excellent. He wanted to be good enough for Nathan. Good enough to keep him close, keep his love.  
  
"Now, why would I laugh at you?" Nathan gently flicked the tip of Peter's nose with his thumb. "You know you can tell me anything."  
  
"It wasn't that big of a deal. I wasn't that sad about it. I never really felt that way about her." Peter shrugged. "She was more like... I liked having someone to go out with but I wasn't really that into _her_ specifically. I never felt like we were friends. I think I only started going out with her because she'd have sex with me and she was popular and knew where all the good parties were going to be this summer. And, y'know, since then... it's not like I've lacked for company, exactly."  
  
"Oh... Pete the player," Nathan teased.  
  
"Sorta," Peter said with a little smile. "Well, at first, it was like a truckload of chicks were all of a sudden all over me, because they heard that I was single again. And all these girls who I guess were holding back for whatever reason suddenly saw this opportunity. It was kind of crazy. Even though they should know better, they all thought they'd give it a try. Last week, I kissed three different girls, and told all of them that I'd get physical with them, but that I wasn't ready to get into a boyfriend-girlfriend thing again right now, and that just drove them more insane. I was getting my ass pinched in the hall. Total sexual harassment. That's the worst part of being considered a slut, y'know... people think they can just do whatever they want to you."  
  
"But guys can't be sluts," Nathan broke in. "They're just... _lucky_."  
  
Peter chuckled. "You would say that, huh? Anyway... so on Friday, I get this note in my locker. My gym locker. You know, in the _guys' locker room_?"  
  
"Oh, my God," Nathan said, raising his eyebrows.  
  
"It gets better. At first I was like, who's got a crush on me, and are they on the wrestling team? Because they're going to be really sad that I'm not on it this year... but no, it was totally a girl's handwriting. And it said, like, 'meet me at the south parking lot at 3:30 - Goya.' And I thought who the fuck is Goya? So I asked Kevin Mitchelson, who's an asshole, but he does know every single person in the school at least superficially, and he was like 'Goya? She's new. Total trouble slut.' So, of course I had to go and meet her."  
  
Nathan hung on Peter's every word, stroking Peter's bare ankle with his fingertips with a touch too deliberate to be ticklish, but rhythmic, like petting a cat in his lap. Peter liked that touch, liked to pretend to be a cat in Nathan's lap. "So you and Goya are going out now."  
  
"We're not really 'going out,'" Peter replied. "This was last week, okay. I've only ever seen her twice, Friday, and then Tuesday, day before yesterday. She'll drop a note in my gym locker - which means that she's getting into the guy's locker room, somehow - and it says the same thing - south parking lot, 3:30. And then I go there and meet her, and her minder will come pick us up in a Mercedes and drive us to her house, because she's on some kind of house probation, and she's supposed to be supervised on the way home? And then we go up to her bedroom and... have sex. Nothing else. Sometimes we'll listen to a record while we're... y'know... but we don't really talk. Her folks are out of town right now, hustling some deal in Europe, and her minder doesn't care if she's in her room, having sex with someone her own age. I promised the minder that we'd do everything safe, that I didn't do drugs or smoke, and she was like 'Whatever. Have fun.'"  
  
They both laughed. "Wow. No wonder you didn't call me; you've been busy. So is this Goya actually a 'trouble slut'?" Nathan asked. "I mean, what is a 'trouble slut'? It sounds kinda cool."  
  
"Well... she's at our school because she got kicked out of Andover for getting caught, giving the valedictorian a blow job, both of them rolling on Ecstasy. According to her, _he_ got to stay because he's some federal government administrator's kid, which I think is really lame. But she's a character, all right. Yeah, you know, lives at the Majestic, child of two art dealers, hence the name... she told me that she's a lesbian, but she's making a special exception for me. I think she's just saying that."  
  
Nathan shrugged and assumed a worldly-wise expression. "You really never can tell, Pete. I've fucked a _lot_ of lesbians."  
  
"All at once?" Peter quipped.  
  
Nathan grinned. "Well, I've had two at once."  
  
"Really?" Peter blurted, amazed, then shaking his head, wondered why he was surprised. "How was it?"  
  
"Never boring for a moment," Nathan said. "Couple of Columbia property-law students picked me up in a club. Lipstick dykes, one blonde, one brunette. The blonde in stiletto-heeled, knee-high boots. Matching lingerie - I mean they matched each other. God! Gorgeous. They were really into each other, a lot more than they were into me, but that's okay - as long as they didn't mind me watching them. I was just a cock. Just a tool. Pretty enough to play with them, and smart enough to do what I was told."  
  
Peter shook his head. "No, _that's_ what I call lucky."  
  
"I just know how to approach it," Nathan said with glaringly false modesty. "Dykes are people, too."  
  
Peter grinned up at him. "And you didn't convert a single one."  
  
"No... I don't think I did," Nathan admitted, chuckling. He was very relaxed. "I've never bothered to try. They've got their thing, and I've got mine. You don't seem to be doing too badly, actually. You're getting more tail than I did at your age."  
  
"Well, it didn't help that you were at an all-guys' military school."  
  
"We got leave," Nathan mentioned, "and I took advantage of it. But I wasn't... knee-deep in pussy like you are."  
  
Peter shrugged. "Well, none of the other girls wants to have anything to do with me now that they know that I've had sex with Goya. They all think she's a skank because of her reputation. I think it's even worse that it's obvious that I don't like, _like_ her, that we're not a couple. We don't talk to each other in the halls if we see each other - she doesn't talk to almost anybody, actually. I want her to make friends, but I'm the worst person in the world for that. I am super unpopular right now."  
  
"A lot of other guys would kick her to the curb for that."  
  
"But it's not her fault. People are just being dicks because I'm not doing what they want me to do. Goya's at least interesting and she doesn't have some agenda for me. Then again, I wouldn't know; I don't really know her. But as far as I can tell, she's a risk addict. I can kinda understand that, you know? Considering her parents. She comes from like Taos, New Mexico, that whole art scene there. It's all Georgia O'Keefe vagina paintings and turquoise crafts and crystal meditation. How do you rebel? It's either become a punk rock trouble slut, or a total right-wing corporate Republican square. I mean, no offense."  
  
"I'm not a Republican," Nathan said, pouting, then grinning, crinkling his eyes.  
  
Peter took Nathan's hand from his ankle, and brought it to his lips, kissing the back of it. "Sorry," Peter murmured. "I know that's a terrible thing to say."  
  
Nathan took his hand back, but then lay it on Peter's head, and began to stroke his hair. Peter stretched, and slid a few inches further forward, his thighs now across Nathan's lap, and slid one of his own hands between his thighs. He was getting a boner, thinking about Goya and smooth cool lesbians in matching lingerie, being this close to Nathan, basking in Nathan's warmth, his scent, the sound of his laughter. Nathan's breathing deepened, and he took a long, thirsty swallow of beer. A cold drop of condensation fell from the bottle and landed on the chest of Peter's T-shirt. "Feed me a swig?" Peter whispered, and sat up slightly while Nathan tipped the beer bottle carefully against Peter's mouth. It worked perfectly - the beer didn't foam up, and Peter didn't choke. It was a good sign. He smiled lazily, and settled back, being the cat again. He even purred a little.  
  
Nathan set down the bottle on a coaster on the side table, and gazed down at Peter. He asked, "What does she look like?"  
  
"Goya?" Peter inquired, and Nathan nodded.  
  
And slid his cold wet hand under Peter's T-shirt, resting the palm flat against Peter's belly.  
  
Peter didn't flinch, though he it made him breathe more deeply too, trying to maintain control. He'd been so cool so far, it wouldn't do to get hypersensitive now. He put his hand over Nathan's, over the T-shirt, warming Nathan's hand. (That's why he'd put his hand there, right? What Nathan would be thinking, right? Peter would play along, pretend...) "She's kinda normal-looking, actually. She's got curly hair, kind of at chin length, and it's really obviously dyed black, because I guess before, it was pink dreadlocks, or something, but they made her dye it and cut her hair for school. About five-three... she's pretty buff, but not like sporty. She looks like a fighter, is what she looks like. Like she knows how to box."  
  
"Oh," said Nathan, sounding disappointed. He really did have a narrow standard of attractiveness. "Really?"  
  
"A girl doesn't have to look like a magazine cover before I want to see her with her clothes off." Peter smiled and nodded, thinking, remembering. "I dunno. Cute face. I think she's hot enough. She's a high-school girl. Seventeen." Peter purred a little more. "She's tender. She wants to be hard and tough, but... she's tender, she's soft. And she loves sex. I understand that."  
  
"Did you fuck her?" Nathan whispered. His fingers spread on Peter's belly, slid up, warm now, the T-shirt fabric bunching around his golden-olive wrist.  
  
Peter had to catch his breath for a moment before he could reply. "Y-yeah... the first time. On Friday."  
  
"You fucked a girl you'd just met, what, an hour before?" Nathan's voice hovered between admonishing, and quivering with desire.  
  
"Like you haven't. C'mon. Yeah, that's what happened," said Peter. "But it wasn't like... I dunno. It was kinda nice. No games. We both fully understood what was going on. She wanted to get laid, and I wanted to have sex with somebody that wouldn't expect me to ask them to the Homecoming dance as a - a surcharge for having sex with me. I just want to... fuck or at least make out every day... you know, I need it now. It's not the same as beating off at all. I need to be touched. She told me... uh... she came into the school on Tuesday, and then she saw me in the hall, and uh..." Peter's voice caught; Nathan's fingers stroked the underside of his pectoral muscle, then slid up more, pressing a nipple down with a fingertip. Grasping the nipple between thumb and forefinger, pulling it out. "She thought I was worth a try. She said I was just so foxy, she had to try."  
  
"Oh, Pete," Nathan said softly. "It's starting for you, isn't it?"  
  
Peter lost himself for a moment, the basket of his pants suddenly constricting and uncomfortable. He bucked his hips slightly, which rubbed the top curve of his behind against Nathan's thighs, and made the stricture of Peter's pants even worse. Yeah, it was starting for him all right - that half-painful journey into the kind of arousal that had to be released. But Nathan kept speaking, as if he didn't notice what was going on with Peter, even though he was still pulling on that nipple, idly squeezing it between his fingers. "Women just throwing themselves at you. Don't let them take advantage of you. They'll do it. But worse, they'll get crazy over you. They'll try to trap you. Women... they're possessive... they're territorial. Be careful."  
  
"Stay slutty?" Peter whispered. He had to touch his erection; he absolutely couldn't control himself. He played it off as adjusting himself, but there'd be no need for him to adjust if there was nothing going on there. He kept his eyes closed, praying that if he couldn't see anything, nobody would see anything.  
  
"As long as you can," Nathan replied with a laugh in his voice.  
  
Eyes closed, Peter arched his hips, gripped himself through the fabric of his trousers, but immediately let go again with a shaky sigh. "Sorry," he mumbled.  
  
"Don't be," said Nathan. "It's okay." He raised his hips a little bit, too, and Peter could feel the hard ridge of Nathan's cock across the small of his back. Peter gave an involuntary hiss, and a louder, helpless sigh of sexual frustration. He wanted so badly to shout, _What the fuck is this? Stop torturing me if you don't want us to do this. Why did you say yes?_  
  
Instead, he slid back further and sat up, swinging one leg down the floor, sighing with relief as his equipment suddenly had some room to move. He leaned over to Nathan and pushed Nathan's shoulders to the side, indicating that Peter wanted him to lie back. Nathan did lean back, head on one of the sofa's throw pillows, and when Peter lay over and against him, he raised his arms and brought Peter in for a close embrace. _Any time,_ Peter thought. _Tell me to stop any time and I will stop. I know this isn't right; you know it, too. Please beg me to stop because otherwise..._  
  
Nathan ran his fingers through Peter's hair, from the nape of the neck to the forehead, a vague smile playing at the edges of his lips. Peter kissed him on the mouth, a nice wet open kiss of the kind he'd been wanting all day, lightly biting and sucking Nathan's lips, drawing back as soon as he felt Nathan respond. _I guess he doesn't want me to stop..._  
  
"So why'd you cancel your date?" Peter asked, kissing Nathan, and drawing back again.  
  
Nathan actually arched his hips toward Peter, and his large, deep eyes held their focus on Peter's face. Peter had to shut his eyes, unable to deal with the intensity of Nathan's gaze, and their bodies so close. It felt like they had never been so close before, and Peter could see straight into Nathan's soul through his eyes. It was too much; he wasn't ready yet. "I canceled because I'm dumping her anyway, and you were coming over, and I know I owed you a visit."  
  
"So it's just a matter of honoring your obligations?"  
  
"I find it's smart to not have plans when I know you're going to be anywhere near me," said Nathan, and Peter kissed him again, harder and longer this time. He slid his tongue into Nathan's mouth, tasting the tang of fresher beer on his palate. Nathan turned his face out of the kiss, and added, "You tend to bring chaos along with you. I never know what I'm going to end up having to do because of you."  
  
Peter snickered. "With me."  
  
"With you," Nathan agreed. He was trembling, or maybe Peter was trembling enough for both of them. Nathan hugged Peter again, relaxed again.  
  
Peter unbuttoned Nathan's shirt, and slid his hand along the ribbed cotton of the undershirt, along the rounded areas of bare chest at the edges, thrilling to the texture of cloth and skin and hair under his fingers, extending his kisses to Nathan's neck. Nathan's hips rose and fell again, as if saying, _Yes, feel free to continue._ Peter pulled the undershirt aside to expose one of Nathan's nipples. They were almost exactly like his own, but not quite as dark. Peter played with the nipple between his fingers, pulling on it, the way Nathan had done to him earlier. Nathan closed his eyes. "Like that?" Peter murmured.  
  
"A little harder."  
  
"Like that?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Harder?"  
  
"Uh...! Yeah."  
  
"Do you like, like, clothespins and stuff?"  
  
"No," Nathan said, laughing a little. "Do you?"  
  
"No. I tried it, yeah; like ya do. No, it hurts too much. Then again, I didn't use to like beer, either." Peter kissed Nathan's lips again, and Nathan held him close again, then relaxed. Peter slid his knee between Nathan's thighs, giving Nathan something to ride against, then methodically kissed every scar on Nathan's face, concluding by fluttering his eyelashes against the damp marks left by his lips. Nathan's breath came out as long, heavy sighs. He moved Peter's hands away from his nipples, but didn't protest when Peter ran his hands down Nathan's sides, over to his inner thighs, testing their spread across his knee, and drawing his knee forward for good measure. Kissed him again. Ran his fingers back up Nathan's body and grasped the nipples between his fingertips again, but didn't add any pressure.  
  
Nathan made a low, complaining noise in his throat. Peter kissed a nipple, licked it, lightly sucked it, lightly bit it. Nathan let out his breath noisily, but didn't say anything. His erection felt like a cylinder of warm metal against Peter's thigh, like a roll of silver dollars hot off the coin-stamp. His fingers slid over Peter's back, underneath the loose hem of the T-shirt, stroking bare skin. Peter pulled the undershirt from the waistband of Nathan's pants, and slid his hands underneath it, meeting his fingers on the other side with his mouth, using both at once on a nipple.  
  
Peter asked quietly, "Can I show you something?"  
  
"Show me what?" Nathan asked.  
  
"What Goya did the second time," Peter said. "Tuesday... when we didn't fuck."  
  
"Show me?" Nathan echoed, an edge of worry working its way into his husky, comfortable tone.  
  
"I'd describe it to you, but... it's not the same." Before Nathan could protest, Peter covered Nathan's mouth with his own, coaxing out Nathan's tongue with his own until it followed, twitching and wet, back into Peter's mouth. His hips arched up against Peter faster, his arms held Peter's waist tighter, holding him still as he dry-humped Peter from underneath. Peter was breathless when Nathan finally let go.  
  
"Sit up," Peter told him, his voice playful, but shaking with nervousness. "Get comfortable."  
  
He got onto the floor, kneeling on the pillow that had been supporting Nathan's head. He bent over Nathan, quickly and briskly unfastening Nathan's trousers. Nathan quickly put out his hand to stop Peter, but only so that he could do it himself. He even stood up for a moment, and Peter gazed up from underneath, watching Nathan step out of his clothes, leaving only his underwear. He sat down again, in front of Peter, not half as relaxed as he'd been when he stood up.  
  
They looked at each other without looking at each other. Peter let out his breath in a sigh, shrugging, and pushed Nathan's legs apart with his forearms. He shoved the hem of Nathan's undershirt up above the nipples, exposing his belly and chest. He hooked his fingers through the leg openings of Nathan's boxer shorts, and pulled them down to Nathan's ankles, but not off. Nathan would have to step out of them if he wanted to be free of them, but he could leave them there, and not feel so undressed. Maybe. Peter could only guess. He felt like he might understand what Nathan wanted or needed, one of these days, but right now, it didn't make much sense to him. All he had to go on was the fact that he seemed to be cool with making out, as long as he'd had a drink first, and a chance to relax and reflect some of Peter's desire back at him.  
  
That's all it was; a reflection. That's all it could be. He loved Peter enough to let Peter play around with him sexually; it wasn't and couldn't be anything more than that. Nathan just tolerated him. He let Peter take advantage of him. It was the birthright of the younger sibling. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with what Nathan wanted. Because if Nathan wanted to, why would he deny himself? How could he push Peter away?  
  
Peter slid forward into the space between Nathan's thighs, and fought down a quick stab of panicked excitement. Finally - after so long - he'd get to try this. After begging so many times, for so many years, after dreaming about it at night, longing for it, trying to imagine the taste and the feel and what it would be like. Now he'd know if his guesses had been right.  
  
He took Nathan's penis into his hand and held it lightly in his palm, slowly curling his fingers around it. It seemed smaller so close up, fitting so nicely into his hand, six inches long or so, as far as he could guess. Maybe longer if you counted it from the hidden root. Nothing legendary. But so beautifully symmetrical, straight as an arrow, the smooth, evenly-toned skin a pale but robust olive. Peter's own dick was almost the same size, but as suntanned and slightly crooked as the rest of him. (And currently so hard it made him dizzy.) He took a deep breath and murmured, "So, we're naked in her bedroom. I've got my legs open, like this, and I'm on the edge of her bed and she's on the floor. And she like, looks at my dick and says, 'Nice.'" He bent his face towards Nathan, and breathed deeply. Nathan's natural smell was different here than it was at his armpits or his neck or his feet; this pulse point had an altogether muskier, wilder, heavier scent, but less intense than Peter was expecting. Perhaps Nathan had a shower sometime within the last few hours, but not more recently than that - no lingering smell of soap, and a faint but rising tang of sweat. "And she says, 'Even this is cute, but it hurts a little in all the right ways.'" He gently shook Nathan's cock, and it hardened even more in his touch. Peter smiled, "And then she...," and giving Nathan one last shy glance, brought the head of the cock to his lips.  
  
He kissed the tip twice, then opened his mouth to it, but only to brush the tip of his tongue against the slit. Nathan didn't make a sound. Peter took the whole head into his mouth, swishing his tongue back and forth across the bottom edge, then lifting his head off, and bobbing a little bit without sucking at all. It tasted almost just the same as his lips did, or his hand; just skin, a little saltier, silkier, and more delicate. But the swollen, rounded, sinewy hardness was peculiar and wonderful, like a knuckle, or a tongue, but unlike either. Peter wanted to fit all of it in his mouth, but couldn't without getting too close to his throat, and realized for the first time exactly what sucking on six inches of stiff-but-vulnerable flesh was really about. It was a lot more complicated than it looked, and at least as wonderful as what he'd imagined. He just wanted to suck it until he fell asleep, and wake again with it pressed against his cheek, so he could just go right back to it.  
  
He wanted so many things.  
  
Nathan let out his breath in a sharp burst that sounded like a gasp of pain. Peter immediately stopped and looked up with vastly wide, anxious eyes. "I'm sorry," he said, "am I doing this wrong?"  
  
"You're doing fine," Nathan breathed shakily. "Just fine."  
  
Peter grinned. He'd had a feeling that he wasn't hurting Nathan, and had spoken mostly to have an excuse to make eye contact. To look at Nathan's expression, and see if he was enjoying it. Nathan didn't look overjoyed, but he definitely didn't look unhappy. "I mean..." he said, putting his head down again, and performing the same bobbing motion, but with suction this time, "I don't know. I'm just doing what she did. Because it rocked my world."  
  
"You can just keep doing that for a while."  
  
"Okay," Peter whispered, humming against the shaft of Nathan's cock, purring softly in his throat and then sucking the head a bit more. He could fit quite a bit of it into his mouth now, as long as he stayed relaxed and took deep, slow breaths. "Yeah. Oh, God, yeah... mmm... and then she did this." Back to the back of the throat, just for a second, not long enough to make him feel like gagging. Back off entirely, take a breath, glance up at Nathan, and repeat. Peter was making it up now; by this point with the girl, he had already gotten off. He remembered the sight of his semen on Goya's pale-pink chest. Semen would look so much better on Nathan's golden stomach, getting caught in the silky brown hairs, pooling in his navel, striped across the hollows of his abs. Dripping down to the carefully groomed dark pubic hair and down... Peter had to stop and moan for a while, trying to calm down, frigging Nathan with one hand, unzipping and freeing himself with the other.  
  
"Peter," Nathan muttered warningly.  
  
"I'm sorry...!" Peter gasped, then sucked a bit more. He felt like crying suddenly. They'd gone too far to stop; if he had to stop now, he'd die. He needed to suck and swallow and keep this happening. He relaxed his jaw, and took Nathan's cock as far back into his mouth as he could stand, drew back slowly, swishing with his tongue. He'd be good - he'd make it worth Nathan's while that he was allowed to stay. As long as he was useful, he could stay. He couldn't give this up, not now, not ever. The cock in his mouth was too good. He wished he didn't have to breathe. "I - pretend I'm a girl. Just pretend I'm a girl and... and you don't even know me."  
  
Nathan's fingers gripped Peter's hair. "I can't," Nathan sighed. "I can't."  
  
He gasped raggedly, his hips arching again, this time the motion sliding his cock back and forth in Peter's mouth. They moaned at the same time. "I'm going to come... You have to stop now." Even though Peter had more or less stopped, and merely sat still, his hand clenched in a rough fist around his own cock while Nathan's cock slipped almost out of his mouth, then back again, filling him to the throat. And again. It was gentle and sleepy-slow, but there was no other way to think about it.  
  
Nathan was fucking his mouth.  
  
And now Nathan gave a high, strange, brief cry, pulling back, his fingers frigging a blur on his cock, then halting abruptly. And, sighing, starting again for a second, but only enough to produce a thin spurt of semen, followed immediately by a larger, thicker one. Nathan just stopped there, eyes closed, with the sperm running down over his fingers. Peter sat there staring for a long time before he stood up, shaking all over; he'd just go to the bathroom and get a towel and come back. But that wasn't what was happening. Instead Nathan had pulled Peter close with his clean left hand, reached for Peter's painfully-hard cock with the right hand, and began to stroke Peter, slicking come all over his hardness, all over the head and the shaft. Kissed Peter's belly, so close that Peter could feel his breath.  
  
Peter put his hand down to join Nathan's, then supersede it, the come drying sticky on his fingers. He felt a sharp nudge from inside him, and couldn't help vocalizing, but his attempt to be quiet and cool about it fell apart as the nudge turned into a kick. " _I want to you to fuck me, I want you to fuck me... I want to fuck you..._ " Peter babbled. "God, I want to be in your _ass_. I want you to... ah..." Spunk gushed out of him, spurt after spurt, getting all over his hand, all over Nathan's hand, on Nathan's chest - yes - on Nathan's dark-haired, honey-tanned, 250-crunches-a-day belly. And all through this, Nathan watched, his breath hissing through his teeth. He brought his right hand to his face, pressing one sticky finger to his lips, his eyes flickering shut as he touched it with his tongue, shuddering.  
  
Peter abruptly returned to sanity, the orgasm disappearing as suddenly as it came, and found Nathan staring at him, his expression completely inscrutable. Maybe horrified, maybe appalled, maybe deeply touched in a way that he didn't like. Frightened. Despairing. Something. He looked lost.  
  
Peter couldn't stay silent. "Hey, I, uh," he began, having no idea what to actually say, but it didn't matter. Nathan stood up, pulling up his boxers, maneuvering his body so that while he couldn't help being close to Peter, they didn't actually touch. He slid around Peter, and walked back to his bedroom.  
  
Of course, Peter followed, confused but hopeful.  
  
But Nathan continued on into the bathroom, and shut and locked the door behind him.  
  
"Nathan! Wait! I'm sorry!" Peter yelped.  
  
"It's nothing," came Nathan's voice from behind the door. "Go clean up. We're done."  
  
"No... I don't... wanna..." Peter protested weakly, fighting off the urge to cry. He wouldn't cry. He'd be good and... normal... "Nathan, please."  
  
No response from behind the closed door, but for the sound of the overhead fan, and running water.  
  
Peter went to the kitchen, grabbed a couple of paper towels, and stood at the sink, wiping off the come stains. It wasn't too bad; most of it had landed on Nathan. Peter's face burned hot with shame and lust. He'd just shot buckets of come all over Nathan. After sucking Nathan's cock. After feeling his mouth rounded out so nicely with the hot, firm flesh, feeling it against his throat. Getting Nathan off. But... going too far, fucking up, ruining things, rushing into things and turning Nathan away and reminding him too much of... no, it was all wrong.  
  
Even though.  
  
Peter got his clothes back on correctly, then went back to the bedroom and sat on the floor outside the bathroom door. The fan and water were off now. "Nathan?" he called. "Are you okay?"  
  
The door opened. Nathan stood there in fresh pale-blue pajamas, his hair damply combed into glossy precision, like he was about to go to work and not to bed. He looked almost completely different from the disheveled, red-cheeked, semen-drenched young man that had gone into the bathroom. Now he looked freakishly perfect, like a mannequin, a robot, even the jagged scars on his face seemingly less prominent than they had been. "You're going home now," he said to Peter. "Good night."  
  
Peter cringed on the floor. "Look... man, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say–"  
  
"Get the videotape, and go. Do you need car fare?"  
  
Peter shook his head, fighting off tears for the tenth time that day. "So we're back to that, are we?" he countered. "You're just going to stand there and pretend like–"  
  
"You need to go. You've got school tomorrow. And a paper to write. And I need to go to bed. Don't make this harder than it needs to be."  
  
"How hard does it need to be," said Peter, but he didn't expect an answer; there wasn't one. "I get it. Okay. _Fuck_!" He stood up, raking his fingers through his hair, unable to look at any more of Nathan besides his feet (his beautiful feet, the high arches, the silky hair on his legs, more scars, beauty in scars, the scars that brought them together, that brought Nathan back to Peter, gave Peter something to touch that Nathan wanted touched). He was so angry he felt like puking. "I'll take the fucking subway. And I'll check out the fucking movie from the fucking video store!"  
  
Peter turned and bolted from the apartment barely pausing to grab his backpack from where he'd left it along the wall, wishing that he was delusional enough to believe that Nathan looked sorry, even for a flicker, when Peter cursed him and left. But he knew better. Nathan wasn't sorry. He was a fucker and an uptight, ball-busting jerk and he probably enjoyed grinding Peter's face into the pavement. Peter got into the elevator, hit the ground-floor button, then slid down the wall to the floor and sat there in a lump of misery. There was one thing he was grateful for, though - he was too angry to give in to tears.  
  
He went out onto the dark, relatively quiet night streets, walking slowly back toward the subway station. Down in the ticketing area, after paying his fare, he found a phone kiosk, used his pre-paid dialling code, and called Goya.  
  
"Who is this?" Her minder answered.  
  
"It's Peter. Petrelli," he clarified. "Can I talk to Goya?"  
  
"It's five minutes to her bedtime. Make it quick." After a pause of some minutes, Goya's voice came on the line. "Peter?" she said. She didn't sound pleased.  
  
"Yeah, it's me. Can I come over?"  
  
"It's two minutes to lockdown, pal. Sorry. What's the matter, trouble at home?"  
  
"Yeah, family bullshit," Peter said.  
  
"Want to come see me tomorrow?"  
  
He felt cynical and cruel. "Will you give me head again?"  
  
"You shouldn't get used to it. It's a special treat. But yeah, sure, since you're all sad. Poor sad little Peter P."  
  
"Can I fuck you in the ass?" Peter said dully.  
  
"Um, no," she replied, her voice suddenly charged with controlled anger. "I don't do that shit. Anal sex is for pansies and porno addicts."  
  
"Well, then, fuck off," said Peter. "Because that's what I want."  
  
"'Kay, bye," said Goya without concern, and hung up on him.  
  
Peter stared at the dial-tone-purring receiver for a while before he could even put it down. He was floored at the hideous stupidity of what he'd just done - all of it. Everything he'd done today was so stupid and ugly and dumb and hostile and pointless. He trudged down to the train platform and sat down on a painted, grafitti-carved wooden bench, numb with self-loathing. He got out his CD player and put on his headphones, but every track was one he didn't feel like listening to. He just didn't want or like anything anymore. He opened the CD player, took out the disk, and bent it in his hand until it snapped in half, then snapped the cover of the CD player off and tossed it on the ground, ripping open the case with his fingernails, tearing out circuitry and batteries and throwing the pieces as hard as he could against the wall.  
  
Nobody noticed, because nobody cared.  
  
Summer was over.

**Author's Note:**

> [original posting notes]  
> I confess, I listened to _Hello Nasty_ pretty much continuously that summer, too, as did everyone else in the town I live in. oh, and I also played shitloads of SoulCalibur. Sophitia FTW! (I suck at teh video games, but not that one. Too bad it's ten years old.) .... how the hell did I manage to write something this long so quickly? That's just weird. Please forgive my fetishistic fascination with Nathan's body hair - I blame the Pasdar!beard for suddenly making me into a bear lover. ;) Thanks again...


End file.
